


Telegram

by vifetoile



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Between Series, Breakup, Family, Fortunetelling, Gen, Love, Pre-Series, Spiritual, Travel, written before korra book 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:17:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5062630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vifetoile/pseuds/vifetoile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tenzin has broken up with Lin, and has announced he has no intention of starting a family. Aang is starting to worry about his son's future. With a lot of tea and by consulting various soothsayers around the Four Nations, he's going to find answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Words at the Temple

TO: AVATAR AANG KYOSHI ISLAND  
FROM: KYA GAIPAN  
Hello Father STOP All is well here STOP   
Trading agreement reached no problems STOP Weather very nice STOP First anniversary of Liberty School a success STOP Will stay for another month STOP Sky Bison spotted at S Air Temple STOP I think Tenzin is there STOP That was this morning STOP I think something is wrong STOP

The telegram rustled in the breast pocket of Aang’s robe as he glided his way over the air currents. It was forty years since he had first arrived at the temple and seen the wreckage of the Hundred Years’ War firsthand. Now the world was different. The temple slowly came into view beyond the clouds. Even from a distance, it gleamed. It wasn’t fully restored – the lower levels housed a hospital and inn, but the upper spires still gleamed vacantly, empty of any human inhabitants.   
Save one.  
Aang’s eyes were still sharp enough to spot the tiny fleck of orange and yellow atop the tallest spire. He circled around in a narrowing gyre until he came to land, huffing as the impact hit his ankles. One thing was for sure: he was not as spry as he once was.   
The man who sat on the tower’s edge, his long legs dangling into space, gave no sign of having seen him. Aang stepped quietly towards him. In lieu of a spoken greeting, Aang summoned a breeze to tickle Tenzin’s left ear.   
The only sign that Tenzin gave in return was to tap his fingers, once. No answering breeze gusted towards Aang’s right ear.   
Aang sat beside his son. “Hello, Tenzin.”  
After a long silence, he glanced over. Tenzin’s grey eyes were rimmed with red. He looked like he’d been trading sleeping for flight, and square meals for crying.   
Aang hadn’t felt so fiercely protective of his little boy in years. He said, “Kya said you might be here. She said something was wrong.”  
“Did she tell you what was wrong?” Tenzin asked flatly.   
“Well, no. It was one of those new-fangled telegrams that Sokka’s so fond of – hardly any space to tell me where I might find you.”   
Silence. Aang sensed the breezes around them – heavy and slow. Tenzin must have been sitting here for at least an hour, to have netted so much gloom around himself.   
“Tenzin, my boy, what’s wrong?”   
Tenzin tilted his head back, like he was trying to swallow a disgusting morsel. He clamped his eyes shut. “Lin and I broke up.”   
Aang just had time to think that this was nothing earth-shattering, Tenzin and Lin had broken up and gotten back together plenty of times over the years, when Tenzin added, “We broke up per… forev… for good.”  
“And when was this?”  
“Two days ago.”  
Two days ago Tenzin must have been in Republic City, with Lin – maybe he had just flown on Oogi nonstop to arrive here. Aang checked around for Oogi: the great sky bison was snoozing on the lower deck, sunning himself and breathing heavily. Aang put a hand on Tenzin’s travel-stained cloak. Tenzin leaned into his father – or started to. He drew back, but clenched his father’s hand in his.   
“How do you know it’s for good?” ‘Just ask the questions,’ Aang thought, ‘Don’t provide solutions or condolences too early.’ Aang could just tell that words were bunched up and knotted as tight as gnarled tree branches in his baby son – they needed to be set free, but only in Tenzin’s own way.   
“Because –” he gulped – “what we want in life is too different. Irreconcilable. It’s – too huge a gulf. I – I prop— offered—I asked her to marry me.”  
“Ooohhh.” Aang sighed with regret. That would have been wonderful. They all would have been so happy.  
“It was my second proposal.”  
“Third,” Aang interrupted as gently as he could. “I think the first time you were about five.”  
Tenzin didn’t smile. He dropped his father’s hand. “She said we had to make a permanent decision, one way or the other. It didn’t go well. In fact, it got very ugly. She said… that I was playing her along. Incapable of thinking for myself. Untrustworthy.” He scrunched up his mouth, as if he’d found what he’d just said to be rotten.   
“She was speaking from anger,” Aang started.  
“I called her things, too.” He wrung out his robe in his hands. After a long pause, he blurted, “A cold-hearted machine, a stubborn, passionless liar, an indecent woman, monster… I shouldn’t have, but spirits take me, I was so mad. I said, she didn’t deserve to be…” he stopped.   
Aang summoned a cooler, fresher breeze to cut through the maelstrom of melancholy around them. Tears began to course down Tenzin’s face. He clasped his palms in the gesture to invoke serenity, but his hands shook.   
Aang waited until the worst of the sobs were over, and then prompted, “She didn’t deserve to be – a police detective? Your wife?”  
“A mother. She didn’t deserve to be a mother.”  
Aang’s eyes widened. “You fought about—”  
“Children. Lin doesn’t want them.” Tenzin looked away from his dad and muttered something.  
Aang leaned forward. “What?”  
“I said, ‘and I’m not sure I do, either.’”  
His jaw fell. “Tenzin, what about your responsibilities to –”  
“To whom? The Air Nomads? The Spirits? The ‘balance of the world’? To you?”  
“Yes, yes, and yes.”  
“Every single day, every single day of my life I’ve been reminded of my duty. I’m an outsider even in my own family. People talk about me as if I’m nothing but a vessel for pure Air Nomad existence. They see my arrow and they think, ‘Wow, he’s got to father all the Air Nomads all over again, what a life!’ And what has it cost me? Society with normal people, the freedom to choose my own path, and the love of my life, the woman of my dreams, for a duty that she can’t be part of.”  
Aang frowned. “There are other women, Tenzin.”  
“Like you know?” Tenzin exploded at his father. “You met my mother at the age of twelve, and got married at sixteen, you’ve only ever had one woman! I’ve just had to throw away thirty years with the best friend I’ve ever had, and – and I never wanted to be the last airbender, never!”  
Aang bit back the temptation to ask, “Do you think I did?” He’d already changed the whole conversation with one ill-timed and tactless remark.   
“I was born to carry on the Air Nomads, you and Mother were trying for an Air Nomad, to complete your little collection. Isn’t that true? Isn’t that true?”  
“Yes, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t love you, cherish you for who you are beyond your bending—”  
“Then why stop at me? If it wasn’t just a matter of ‘We’ve got what we wanted, let’s quit’?”  
Aang felt himself going red. “We tried, yes. But there were two miscarriages in two years. It nearly broke your mother’s heart, not to mention her health—you wouldn’t remember.”   
“Funny. Almost like the spirits only wanted one airbender in the world at a time.”  
“Tenzin, some things just… happen.”   
Tenzin got up and began to pace the top of the tower. “Do you know, some old fashioned Earth Kingdom cities do this thing—” he spoke quickly and loudly, his right hand waving erratically, “where a man takes on as many as four concubines, so he can father as many sons as possible? Did that never occur to you?”  
“I could never—”  
“Oh, so your duty to the Air Nation ends at one son, but I’ve got to have more? How many grandkids do you want, Pop? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? How many concubines will I need?”  
“I also have a duty to my wife – and I, myself, would never have agreed to concubines. The idea did come up, Tenzin, but I couldn’t – it would be wrong, you know that. And I love your mother too fully for any other arrangement.”  
“I,” Tenzin blinked tears away, “would have lived with Lin in a savage jungle, or in the slums, or a volcano’s mouth – anything she wanted. But she didn’t want children, and so I’ve thrown away the best thing that ever happened to me – for a duty to a people I’m not even a part of.”  
“I’m sorry, my son, I’m sorry, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be—”  
“Shut. Up.” To punctuate the last word, Tenzin picked up his glider, which had been lying on the ground nearby, and opened it. Then he turned around and looked at Aang, just a moment, before he took a running leap off of the turret.   
“Tenzin!” Aang yelled, hurrying to the edge and bending over to see what had become of his son. But Tenzin was fine; he was flying at breakneck speed away from the southern Air Temple, too fast for Aang to follow.  
Not that Aang wouldn’t try. He picked up his glider anyway, and leapt off the turret – when suddenly Oogi’s furry bulk filled his vision. The sky bison roared once – a warning, nothing more: You are not to follow. Then he took off after his boy.  
Aang landed, stumbling and staring. What he had heard rang in his ears, and constantly before his eyes was the glare Tenzin had given him – a glare full of anger, sadness, bitterness, but not hatred. Aang had to hold on to the idea that he saw no hatred.

STOP

“Of course he doesn’t hate you.” Katara said, after calming Aang (who had flown down to the South Pole in a terrified rush) and hearing the whole story. “He’s very upset, and I don’t blame him. But this doesn’t mean he’s disowned you.”   
“I didn’t even see clearly where he was going – he could be anywhere. I need to follow—”  
“The last thing that either of you needs is another meeting, Uncle,” chimed in Yukito, the redheaded son of Sokka and Suki. “Hate you? No. Want you within a twenty-mile radius of him? No.”   
“But if something happens—”  
“He’s a master Airbender,” Katara gave Aang a kiss on his arrow. “He learned from the best. He can take care of himself.”  
Aang was silent for a long time as Yukito served the tea and continued to gossip. After a time he brought the talk to his own family (as he was wont to do), and the stunning achievements of his children. Then Aang said, “I’m afraid.”   
He said it very calmly and flatly, but his wife and nephew both turned to stare. “What?” Katara asked.  
“I’m afraid that Tenzin may have meant what he said. That he will refuse to marry, raise a family – that by my pressure on him, he will be the last Airbender just out of spite.”  
“Now, he’s not like that,” Katara said. “You know him too well to think he’d do that.”  
“I’m not so sure. Or what if he does marry and all of his children are non-benders?”   
“Oh my spirits! What a disaster!” Yukito muttered into his teacup.   
Aang looked at him, his grey eyes sorrowful. “I will not be around much longer. I’m afraid for the fate of the Air Nomads – completely separate from my fear for my son. I…” he chuckled weakly, “I may have lived in the past, but now I need… I need to know about the future.” He scanned the tea leaves at the bottom of his now empty cup. “How can I see what lies in store?”  
Silence greeted this query. Yukito gave a sidelong ‘He’s crazy’ look to Katara, but she looked more pensive.   
“My Gran-Gran used to recite a little rhyme… I think in the Southern Water Tribe, there was a specific order that Waterbenders had to learn their different tasks: ‘First learn ice to shape the town, second they learn to keep foes down, third, bring healing after slaughter, four, see all in frozen water.’”   
“Has this become a Spiritual Mumbo Jumbo kind of day?” Yukito drained his tea. “If so, I’m out.”   
She went on, “I read in the Northern Water tribe that benders would meditate in the Spirit Oasis for visions of the future. But in the South, benders used to See glimpses of what was to come in the ice. They dedicated their lives to it.”  
“Were they also eating fermented seaweed, by chance?” Yukito asked innocently.  
“Yukito, this is your heritage,” Katara rebuked him.   
Aang looked animated. “I never knew this – this is wonderful to hear. But I suppose the art died out? With the war?”  
She looked into the distance, her expression thoughtful. “It actually died out before the war. The Ice-seers were only a myth, a story for the fireside, even to my grandparents. My grandfather said that most of them went mad. And some moved North and were never seen again.”   
“Ain’t that the way? So glad we’ve got telegrams now, to keep in touch.” Yukito began to clear away the cups. “So when I go North next week, anything you want me to buy?”  
“North! That’s it!” Aang sat up suddenly, smiling like a twelve-year-old once more.  
Katara laughed. “What now, my mercurial husband?”  
“What if the Ice-seers didn’t just disappear? What if some of them just went a little ways north, to where there was lots of water, and they could See without losing their minds?”  
“The Foggy Swamp?” Katara asked. “Why, maybe.”  
“Oh, those guys! Dad’s told me about them.”   
“I’m going to pay a visit. Do you want to come with?” Aang asked his wife.   
She got slowly to her feet. “What will you ask, exactly?”  
“About… the Air Nomads. Their future. Tenzin’s future.”  
“Then this is your quest. I don’t think I would be… well. This doesn’t involve me.” Katara smiled softly at her husband. “I’ll stay here, in case Tenzin comes home.”  
“Good. Good. Appa and I will fly out there tomorrow.”  
“You may want to take one of the younger sky bisons.” Katara helped Aang to his feet.  
“Yes, good idea.”  
“Aang,” Katara’s voice brought him back, took him away from the high and fancy schemes he was already halfway to plotting. “Remember to stay safe.”  
“I will.”  
“And don’t get so caught up in dreams you lose sight of what’s here.” She clasped his hand tightly. “What’s now.”  
“Sometimes I swear, you should have been born an airbender,” Aang muttered, touching his forehead against hers. “My wife, a font of wisdom.”   
Yukito made a louder noise than was strictly necessary as he cleared away the plates. Aang laughed, kissing Katara. He said, “Well, I’ll see which one of the bison is most up for a good flight. And then we’ll see... what we shall See.”  
Yukito now turned around. "Uncle," he said, "You should know by now that puns like that belong strictly to our side of the family, yeah?"


	2. Cards on the Table

It had been a long time since Aang had been free to just meander, to fly to a place simply for his own benefit – for fun, even – and not to attend to any crises brewing or troublemakers lurking in the Four Nations. The Avatar had no pressing visits or duties at the moment. Tenzin and Lin, it seemed, had planned their falling-out most serendipitously.   
Aang chided himself for the thought. Of course Tenzin was hurting, and he hadn’t planned it to make life easier on his father. But still, the sense of unhurried travel stole on Aang’s heart, lightening his mood. He flew on the back of one of the younger bisons, dubbed Tuuli, who still needed a bit of training but was more than strong enough for the journey to the Foggy Swamp, southern Earth Kingdom, no detours necessary.  
And then, true to Aang’s element, at some point he got the whim, “Well, as long as I’m in the area…” and he made a detour.  
The destination: Makapu Village, home of Aunt Wu. The most estimable Seer of Clouds had gone to her rest long ago, but the village still had its fortuneteller to guide them and lead them – Wu’s onetime apprentice, Aunt Meng.   
There was only a faint trickle of smoke from the volcano that day. Aang saw the deep furrows of cooled lava that he himself had stilled over fifty years ago were still visible. He scanned the streets until – there!   
He coaxed Tuuli to land in front of the fortuneteller’s house. And, of course, the fortuneteller was waiting for him.   
Aunt Meng bowed deeply. “Welcome to Makapu Village, Avatar Aang.” She wore her black hair – now well on its way to silver – in two large buns on either side of her head, and her robes were, like her predecessor’s, simply made but with the finest materials. When she straightened up her eyes twinkled. “Did the Lady Katara send an emissary for her fortunetelling?”  
“She chose to stay home this time. I’m your client today,” Aang disembarked from Tuuli’s back, “if you would do me the honor.”  
“The honor is mine.” Meng beamed, showing the gap in her front teeth.   
She led him into the house. Its interior had been somewhat updated from Aang’s last visit, but still it retained the old fashioned style from before the Earth Kingdom opened its doors to the world. It was also more cluttered – a hallway leading off to private rooms was crowded with toys, scattered and abandoned. A small, dark-haired boy darted through, picking up toys by the fistful. When he spotted Aang he stopped, stared bashfully, and then sprinted away.   
Aang indicated the boy – or the direction in which the boy had vanished – to Meng. “Your…?”  
“Grandson,” she corrected. “One of four, so far.”   
“Oh. How nice.” Aang knew he should have been more appreciative, but at the moment it seemed a monumental effort.   
The main chamber for clients was still kept atmospherically – and dimly – lit. The incense was an invigorating cedar scent. While Aang sat down and arranged his robes carefully, Meng took out wrapped bamboo sticks, animal bones, and pebbles. She said, “I of course learned all of Aunt Wu’s various crafts, but while she always determined the method of soothsaying, I let my clients decide which sort they prefer.”   
The collection of items she spread out before Aang seemed hodgepodge and random – a single book, a cage of white mice, an inkwell standing by a saucer… Meng noticed his staring and added, “I can also slaughter bird entrails, if you like.”  
“No,” Aang shook his head quickly. Then he pointed to a deck of what looked like playing cards. “What about those?”  
“Ah – a good choice. Taro cards are suited to a wide variety of subjects. The images they show can awake imagination and prompt new ways of seeing the situation. Shall I use those?”  
“Please do.”   
She clapped her hands, and a door slid open. A bright-eyed young girl hurriedly shuffled in, collecting the other sets of tools. She made quite a picture, hurrying out the door with her arms full of supernatural geegaws. She closed the door behind her by an act of extreme, elbow-oriented ingenuity – followed by a loud Crash!  
Aang flinched, but Meng only smiled calmly. “She’ll learn. Now, if you would kindly shuffle the cards… and tell me, what problem plagues the Avatar himself?”  
He had a knack for card shuffling, and set to it at once. “I don’t come to you as the Avatar. Today, I’m just an Air Nomad. I… want to know about my son’s future. The future of the Air Nomads resets on him. He’s the only one who can really carry on our culture and bending, yet I wonder… what is his path? Will the future I want for him come to pass?”  
“What is your son’s name?”  
“Tenzin.”  
Meng beamed. “What a beautiful name. Now… draw five cards, please, and lay them in a cross shape.”   
The cards seemed to sing to Aang’s fingers as he laid them down. He felt braver, confident in Meng’s abilities. When Meng turned the cards over, they found the Five of Water at the base of the cross, and the City Lord and Exam Master on either side of the center. Above those was the World-Spirit card, which showed a young girl dancing atop what Aang recognized as a lion-turtle. Meng turned over the center card and Aang gasped: it showed an Air Nomad, aged and wise-looking, bearing a glider aloft, and was titled The Sovereign of Air.   
He pointed to it. “What does that one mean?”   
“The Taro deck, rather like playing cards, is divided into four suits, based on the four elements. Since the Air Nomad genocide,” she hesitated over the word, and couldn’t meet Aang’s eyes, “the cards such as Lady of Air and Student of Air are usually used to represent non-benders. But in this case, I think that the card’s old meaning should be read first.” She winked. “The Sovereign of Air indicates a wise man, keenly intelligent and sober. A natural, impartial leader.”   
Aang nodded at each line. “And what about the other cards?”   
She pointed to the Five of Water, which showed a Water Tribesman, under a waning moon, weeping over an empty pool. “Ah, I think that this card indicates your Tenzin as he is now – heartbroken, sad, suffering from a loss – and yet to realize that though he has lost much, much still remains to him.”   
“Is the loss permanent?”  
“Sorry?”  
Aang squinted at the card. “My son has… look, he and his girlfriend of more than ten years have broken up. He said that they’d broken up permanently. I’m not sure; they’ve had a lot of spats over the years.” Meng nodded but said nothing, until Aang felt compelled to add, “They fought over having a family together. It seems that L—that the young lady refuses to change her mind about having children.”  
“Does she not want them?”  
“No.”  
“Good for her.” Aang looked up at her, surprised. Meng went on, “It’s brave for a woman to realize what she truly wants, especially when it counters so much of what the world says she should want, and to cling to it. It’s entirely her decision to make.”  
“I never said it wasn’t. Meng, do you really think that this is a permanent break-up?”  
Meng considered. “I know very little about them – I think I only met Tenzin once – but remember this: the question of children isn’t like the question of what house to live in, or what traditions to follow. It’s better that they had this falling-out, now, than if they had gotten married and only then realized that they had differences.”  
“But he can’t not have children—”  
“And if she doesn’t want children, then they won’t be married.”  
“And what if he decides to go back to her anyway, and what about the Air Nomads?”  
Meng answered. “In that case, he would lose much, but wouldn’t he keep something of, perhaps, greater importance?” She nodded to the cards, and Aang again saw the Five of Water with its imbalance and sadness staring up at him.  
He frowned. “What can I do to change his mind?”  
“Is that really your place?”  
She smiled at him, and he sighed. “It’s… no, it’s not my place. And I’m not here to ask about his personal life. What else do you see?”  
She indicated the wider spread. “I see your son having a great destiny, not as a warrior, but as a guide and teacher. I see a city to which he will bring justice, a school of students eager to learn at his feet. And, excelling even him, I see his star pupil.” She tapped the World-Spirit card. “This card usually signifies the Avatar. I think your son is well aware of his many responsibilities, and will not shirk them. He enjoys teaching and leading. I think that he will leave behind a fine legacy.”  
“I see.”  
For a long moment neither one said anything. Then Meng slowly said, “I don’t see anything about a family of his own. Would you like another reading?”  
Aang let out a sigh. “No, thank you. Though I would like a cup of tea.”   
The tea was served. They passed a very pleasant hour talking about the spirit world, fate and free will mingling, and the different nations’ method of fortunetelling.  
“You’re going to see the Swamp Tribe? How nice. Good luck finding the village, though – I hear it’s very tricky to navigate.”  
“I’ll be flying,” Aang said with a smile. “I don’t think I’ll have trouble.”  
“You know, Ihana, the servant you saw earlier, is descended from the Swamp tribe.”   
“Really?”  
“Oh, yes. Her mother’s family moved into the village some, oh, fifteen years ago, and her mother married and fell in love with a native Makapu boy. We’ve never had a Water Tribe family in Makapu before.”   
“The world is opening up,” Aang said. “We’re all more closely connected than ever before.”   
“I know, and it’s delightful. You know one place I’d love to visit before I die? The old Stone Circle. It’s out in the Western corner of the Earth Kingdom, near Omashu. It’s an ancient site for hermits and mystics.”   
“I see the appeal.” Aang stood up to leave. Meng followed suit.   
She guided him outside, pausing to choose her words carefully. “Aang,” she said, “this is, I am sure, something you already know, but a bloodline is by no means the only measure of a man’s success. I am sure that your son will be admired and deeply honored for generations, on account of his own deeds, and not his ancestry. And even the fact that you are the Avatar does not make the future you want for him, the right future for him.”  
Seeing the look on his face, she added quickly, “I know that this is not what you came to hear, but it is what I can tell. And you shouldn’t put all your faith in an old woman and some printed cards.” She grinned.   
Aang couldn’t help but grin back. “Maybe it was I needed to hear.” He bowed. “Thank you, Aunt Meng. Clear skies and gentle winds to you.”  
“And the same to you, Avatar,” she answered, returning the bow. “And come back sooner next time. A decade is a long time to keep a woman waiting!”   
He laughed as he mounted Tuuli. “Try a hundred years!”   
As he flew away, Meng kept waving until he was out of sight. Finally, she dropped her hand, squinting against the afternoon sunlight. “Best of luck— first of the Airbenders.”


	3. Visions in the Swamp

Long before Aang reached Foggy Swamp, he felt the humidity. It settled in his robes and made his bald scalp prickle with sweat. But he found himself relishing the murky odor on the air: it was the smell of living things, unsullied as of yet by technology. He had Tuuli fly low over the swamp for some time before he spotted a tribesman who, from a treetop, directed them down to a clearing to land in. The man was young, strong and fit, clothed in the traditional Swamp costume of “nothing much, really.”  
The tribesman bowed. “The Foggy Swamp Tribe welcomes Avatar Aang.”  
Aang disembarked from Tuuli with a smile. “Greetings.”   
“We had a vision saying you were comin’.”  
“Did you?”  
“Oh, yes. Only it took the form of a younger version of you – same tattoos, same robes, except only a little beard around the mouth, not the jawline –”   
“That—? Why, that must have been my son!” Now Aang saw a mischievous twinkle in the tribesman’s eye.   
“I do believe it was. He passed through the other day. He seemed a bit upset.”   
“Was he? Did he look healthy, at least?”  
The young man shrugged, starting to lead Aang towards the village. “He seemed a bit off-color, but rest assured, we didn’t let him go without some grub to stick to his ribs. And he seemed to guess you might come after. Asked us not to tell in what direction he flew off.”   
Aang sighed.  
“Would the Avatar care for some sweet tea? I haven’t introduced myself. Name’s Li’l Boogie, I’m the apprentice to Old Sava.”   
Aang remembered that Sava had been the apprentice to Huu before the old shaman’s passing. To Li’l Boogie (who towered over him and had arms like tree-trunks, to boot) he said, “Well, if my son wants his space I will respect that. But I would certainly like some tea.”   
Boogie led Aang through the treacherous swampland on a thin raft of reeds. When they arrived at the cluster of huts, raised on stilts above the water level, Aang saw that some innovation had reached the swamp after all: a metal barge, polished and in good repair, was moored on the other side of the village, and a large still – Aang recognized Sokka’s design of old – dripped freshly condensed water into a trough for all the village. At the house of Old Sava the shaman greeted Aang warmly, with three cups of tea already at hand.  
They sat on Sava’s front porch under a spreading banyan tree. Aang knew it was not the way of the Foggy Swamp tribe to hurry into business. So he sipped at the tea – sweetened with honey, and served with ice, probably their last holdover to their polar origins – and listened to Sava patiently recount all of the tribe’s doings and seeings, comings and goings, births and deaths. Passerby would stop and say “How d’ye do” to Sava, and pay their respects to Aang. It wasn’t until an hour before sunset, when Aang was not only Howdy’d out, but soaked with sweat, that Sava said, “I guess you’ll be here to consult the Swamp fer a vision.”  
“Yes.”  
Sava nodded. “To be fair, that’s mostly the only reason people come down to this neck o’ the woods. That and the moonshine.”   
“Well, traveling is going up all over the world,” Aang told him. “I’m sure you’ll get more tourists sooner or later.”  
“We appreciate you passing the time with us, Avatar. Really, we do. We’ve heard tell of your… delicate family situation…”  
“Did Tenzin tell you?” Aang couldn’t imagine his sober, reserved son opening up to this tribe, no matter how hospitable or understanding.   
Sava waved the notion away. “Oh, no. We’s family, you know, through his mother’s side. And word gets around in family.”   
Aang tried to figure this out, then decided that the ways of the Swamp Tribe did not require logic. Certain elements of Water Tribe life required that one simply went with the flow.  
“I just wanna warn you – them that enter the Swamp lookin’ fer specific answers, like asking a street magician to show ‘em the Ace of Air –” Aang shifted uncomfortably, “—Swamp’s just as likely to be nuttin’ to em, nuttin’ but bog and critters and will o’ the wisps. You gotta be open, like an empty cup—” he turned over his wooden teacup, and the last dregs of water trickled out –“open to what the Swamp may show.”   
Aang thought of a vast, moving island, an island that required an open mind to see it for what it really was. “I think I know what you mean.”  
“Wonderful. Now get goin’!” Sava said with sudden fierceness. “Sun’s almost down! You need the best light if yer to go a-huntin’ for visions! Stands to reason. Boogie!”   
And before Aang could say that it was only Sava’s languor that had caused him to tarry so, Boogie had courteously but forcefully escorted Aang to the edge of the swamp floor, on a long and winding path.   
The sunset light was streaming lines of glory through the heavy trees, giving the murky, humid swamp the air of a temple. Aang was awed by its beauty just long enough that when he returned to himself, he realized he was alone.   
For a moment he paused, emptying his thoughts with the silence. Then he followed his nature, and began to wander. He was aware, as he wandered, that he was not exactly being open to what the Spirits had to offer; he was conscientiously trying not to expect anything. For example, he was not expecting a vision of Tenzin surrounded by airbending children, maybe even grandchildren. That, he was sure, was not the right way to go about being an “empty cup.”  
For that matter, he wasn’t really wandering. He was trying very hard to mosey along on a random and aimless path. What kind of an Air Nomad was he? He began to hurry, trying not to care which way he went. He ran, rustling leaves and rippling water behind him. The sun was almost set – he had run out of time – he had already run out of time with Tenzin, lost the time to repair his son’s best chance for happiness. He was lost, Tenzin was lost, the Air Nomads were lost.   
He slowed to a stop. He leaned against the gnarled trunk of a tree, catching his breath. He sat down, leaning his head on his knees. He counted his breaths, until they were steady enough that he could sing, rough and low,   
“If only, if only, the moon in the sky—”  
(It was a lullaby that Katara used to sing to the little ones.)  
“—Would slow in its journey, and stop passing by,  
The wolf on the ice, so lost and lonely, cries to the mooooon,  
If only, if only.”  
The swamp caught the echo of his voice, and returned it to him.  
He sat up. That was not an echo. That was three voices – childish voices, girlish voices. They did not sound entirely of this world.  
Aang leapt from his spot and ran towards the voices. Something ran past him, just as brown and green as the swamp itself, so that at first he didn’t notice – but the laughter caught his ear.   
He turned and saw a little girl, a swamp girl, running gaily over the mossy water. She was singing, “If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs…”   
And as she stopped another little girl appeared at the top of a tree, dressed in the blue furs of the Northern Water Tribe, with plaited black hair. She sang in answer, “Reflecting the sun, and all that’s gone by—”  
And she bent a stream of water at the swamp girl, who deflected it with ease – no, Aang saw that a third girl had deflected it, a Southern Tribe girl with a loud laugh, who hopped down from another tree, singing “¬The wolf on the ice, so lost and lonely…”   
And for a moment, just a moment, Aang watched the three little girls play-fighting, bending water together in a spritely dance, each singing her own home’s version of the song. Their features changed and rippled – now the swamp bender was a little boy, now the Southern girl’s hair was in two ponytails on her temples, the Northern girl’s furs were rich, now tattered, but they all sang in piping harmony.  
Then they were gone, run out of sight, to continue their game beyond Aang’s seeing. All that was left was the echoing refrain, if only, if only.

Aang returned to the Foggy Swamp village, silent with thought. Sava’s front door was wide open to him, and no one pressed him for questions as he took a dinner of stewed greens and maize. It wasn’t until the last plate was cleared away and the ubiquitous cups of sweet tea were served that Sava asked lightly, “So. How’d it go?”  
“I saw a fortune-teller on my way here,” Aang said. “And what she showed me was – not what I was looking for, but it was something I needed to hear. I think… I think the swamp gave me a glimpse of my future incarnation.”  
“Really?” Sava asked, eyes wide. “Do tell.”  
“I saw young girls, waterbenders – each of a different tribe.”   
“Even--?”  
“Even Swamp.”  
“Well, I’ll be!”  
“They were being…”  
“Just being?”  
“Yes. They were being perfectly joyous and free. I felt a connection to them, like I wanted to play with them, become friends. They reminded me that, even after my death, the next Avatar will learn from Tenzin. And she… well, maybe he… will be an Airbender as well. Maybe she will… Well. It’s a bit much to try and predict my future life.” He laughed. “But I needed that reminder all the same.”   
Sava beamed, his dreadlocks fairly lifting up with his smile. “The spirits work in mysterious ways. I don’t pretend to understand the ways of the Swamp perfectly, but I can tell you that there have been Avatars born in this tribe, nurtured under the leaves of the great Tree. And like the Tree watches over all the Swamp, the Avatar Spirit always manages to right the world in the end. Your story won’t end with your death, and I’m sure your future self will be a splendid girl – just splendid. Maybe you two will be friends after all.”  
“Time is an illusion,” Aang answered. “And so is death.”  
“I’ll drink to that!” laughed the swamp wiseman. The two men clinked glasses.


	4. Shadows in the Earth

Somewhere in the mountains around Omashu, Aang’s new destination awaited him. The key word was “somewhere.” Whoever had built it had done so either with an eye for seclusion, or simply meant for it to be found on foot – which, it being an Earth Kingdom landmark, would not surprise him.  
Meng had mentioned the Stone Circle Temple to him during his visit, and it had stirred up a memory. Aang had heard – in his life before the glacier – of the Stone Circle. The monks had spoken of it with reverence, a popular site for southern Kingdom pilgrimages.  
You’d think it would be easier to find.   
Yes, maybe Aang was getting a little desperate (this was morning of the third day, and he sensed that Tuuli was growing tired of the scenery). Regarding fortune-telling, Aang tried to summon his wisdom, submit to the will of the Spirits, and be serene. But he couldn’t be. His dread had become like a ragged air balloon in a windstorm, flapping and straining. Besides, there was a chance to discover, live the old Air Nomad life. Then he was certainly gaining something other than frustration, and the feeling that he was meddling…  
Aha! A spiral of smoke rose into the air from a perfectly normal-looking mountainside. Now that Aang was looking at it, he saw that a large, perfectly circular gate was carved into it.   
Aang and Tuuli descended. Spotting a man sitting by the gate, Aang called, “Good day!”   
“A fair day,” answered the man. He was a warming his hands over a small fire.  
“Might you be the Porter of Stone Circle?”   
“I am. Who asks?”  
‘If the arrows don’t tell you…’ Aang bowed. “My name is Aang. I am the Avatar.”   
The Porter looked up at him. It was hard to tell the man’s age: his skin was lined but his hair showed not a thread of gray. His beard was close-cropped, and his clothes, though tattered, were clean. Aang had been expecting a disheveled hermit, perhaps like Jeong-Jeong, but was quite surprised. “Don’t think that being the Avatar,” the Porter said, “will make you more favored of the Circle. It won’t.”   
“I did not expect that it would. What is the Stone Circle, exactly?”  
“A very well-kept secret.”   
“Is it…” he pointed, “within that gate?”  
The Porter nodded.  
“And how long have you – um, guarded it?”  
“I have served the Circle for over twenty years.”  
“How big is it?”  
He grunted. “Big enough that Badgermoles can find it.”   
If Aang were a Badgermole specialist, perhaps that would have been a helpful answer. “Do you get a lot of visitors out here? Human ones?”  
“A few.” The Porter stood up. “If you’re going to enter the Circle, do so now, while the light is high. There will be no firebending in the Circle.”  
“Of course.”  
“Nor will there be any Earthbending.”  
“I wouldn’t have dreamed of it.”  
“You will not disturb the circle. You shall merely walk through with your mind open and steady –” he glared at Aang’s arrow tattoos – “and calm.”  
“And I’ll – will I see the future?”  
“I didn’t ask why you arrived. Nor did I say what you may find. The wisest sages of Earth arrive here to meditate, not to play Spirits-Hide-And-Seek.”   
Aang bristled. He couldn’t tell the Porter’s age, but surely he was younger than himself. The Porter had no right to talk to him like a rebuking parent. “I assure you, I am very well-versed in meditation.”   
They stood before the door of the Circle. A great round stone, of deep gray speckled with mica, sealed it shut.  
“I was told that this place could provide knowledge of the future,” Aang felt he had to add.  
The Porter made no expression, but merely took an earthbending stance. “To know the future—” a fist clenched, a foot moved, his hands pulled back –“One must understand the past.” The stone gate divided in two and slid open. Aang leaned forward. He saw a pitch-black tunnel, where the beams of the friendly morning sun only extended so far.   
“Thank you,” he bowed to the Porter. Then he suppressed his prickle of fear – he’d faced so much worse, as a child – and walked inside. He expected the Porter to close the gate behind him at once, but it stayed open. Aang found this surprisingly thoughtful, until the path he was on suddenly curved sharply to the right. He looked around. There was no other route. No light visible on the right hand – and only – path.   
Well, now it made more sense. He had been walking in a straight line before, now he would enter the Circle proper. And he was near Omashu – maybe the light-giving crystals of the Cave of Two Lovers would be found within. And at any rate…  
With a smile, he bent down and took off his shoes, carrying them in his hands. He didn’t need light to see.   
He set off down the dark path.

It didn’t take long before he realized that the proper word for this was labyrinth. He walked along a gentle curve, then met a hard bend that reversed his direction almost completely. This happened several times. The ceiling and floor glowed with crystals, not extravagantly as in the caves around Omashu, but just brightly enough to prevent him from bumping into walls. And the path was flat and smooth. Aang found his mind calming and quieting itself almost automatically as he walked. He hadn’t tried this sort of meditation-by-walking, but he liked it.   
Eventually, he turned a corner and his eyes were struck by a beam of sunlight. A window was carved into the earthen wall, and its light fell onto a wide circle of pounded, flattened copper. Aang approached slowly, full of admiration. What simple, yet fine craftsmanship! Perhaps the mountain had copper ore as well as crystals in it.  
Aang laid a hand on the mirror’s edge – for the metal was so well-polished that he could see himself in it. It was, furthermore, very thin. He tapped a fingernail against it, once, then a second time, harder.   
A lovely, deep chime sounded. The echoes reverberated throughout the tunnel. Grinning, Aang looked back into the mirror – to find the surface changed. Through a ruddy-orange sheen, he saw…   
His own, younger self, a couple of decades younger, in fact, sitting at his desk at home, reading a scroll. It looked like just an ordinary day, like any number of days that Aang may have passed at home. The chime of the copper mirror came back to Aang’s ears, only now broken up, pitched higher, and clanging riotously.   
He knew the sound at once. When his daughter was born he’d hung up a set of windchimes in the nursery, waiting to hear them played one day by a baby Airbender. The chimes had stayed up through Bumi’s childhood, which was free of bending but full of other mischief, to make up for it. But they hadn’t rung once until this day…  
In the mirror, Aang’s head flew up, his eyes wide. He didn’t believe what he heard. Then he jumped up, scattering his scrolls and books. He raced to the nursery, where Tenzin was puffing up air to the windchimes, six feet away, and clapping his hands with joy. And Aang-in-the-mirror rejoiced, picking up his son, laughing, spinning around the room, tossing him into the air to buffet his fall with Airbending.   
Aang out of the mirror couldn’t hear what he himself was saying. But it didn’t matter. Only the chimes sounded. And when the image faded, the sound of the windchimes danced on the air for a longer, sweeter moment, before fading. The man stood before the copper mirror a long while before he leaned away, and saw that there was a new path to traverse. He set off down it, deep in thought.   
Well. This certainly didn’t prove that the Stone Circle wasn’t favoring him – on the contrary, that day had ranked as one of the single happiest and proudest of his life. So why show it to him, here, now?   
The new path involved many turnabouts and right angles. He walked without worrying, his mind peaceful and clear. Turn and twist, follow the path… until he encountered another large mirror of copper, lit again by an upper window.  
Aang leaned forward to peer into the depths of the second mirror, eager to plumb the depths of spirit and learning. He flicked the mirror with a fingernail – pnnnng – and the chime sounded once more.   
The reflection of Aang in the mirror changed into his younger self, seated at a dinner table with his three little ones, with Tenzin now at the age of seven. Katara was absent; Aang recalled a last-minute summons to help with a difficult birth in the village. But she’d cooked dinner; seal liver and seaweed soup, and delicious black noodles. Aang served the little ones. In the mirror, Aang finished loading up Tenzin’s plate and set it in front of him. Tenzin looked sadly up at his father and mouthed something.  
Aang remembered, abruptly, what Tenzin had said, and why this night was important. He’d said, “Daddy, why do Kya and Bumi get seal liver and I don’t?”  
And Aang had started to explain to his son that as an Air Nomad he was expected to respect the sanctity of all life, and to never consume meat or dairy in accord with this belief Tenzin responded to this lecture by starting to cry. When Bumi (always had a generous heart) had reacted by spooning his own seal liver onto Aang’s plate. Aang had then started to scold Bumi. He took the plate away from Tenzin, which made the boy cry harder.   
Now Aang out-of-the-mirror heard something like his son’s wail – it must have been the whistling of the wind in the air vents. The scene in the mirror faded.   
Aang stood opposite the mirror, staring at his own reflection. He remembered Katara returning to demand an explanation for her son’s tear-streaked face. After Aang’s explanation had come the fight, and Katara’s ultimatum that either all of the children would be vegan, or none would. Despite Aang’s ideals, he gave in on this issue: Tenzin would eat meat and cheese and milk with his siblings until he chose to abstain. The next night Aang had watched his son tear into a fillet of cod with a sinking heart; but fortunately Tenzin chose the vegetarian life of his own accord at the age of eleven – as did Kya, funnily enough. But neither he nor his father ever talked much about the time when Tenzin was a carnivore.   
What did this mirror mean, reminding him of that day? Aang impishly made a face in it – and then walked away quickly, just in case any nearby spirits got ideas. 

He was starting to feel restless, stifled, this far underground. Even in the depths of meditation, the silence unnerved him. He felt it would be irreverent to hum or whistle to pick up his spirits. But then again, hustling along the labyrinth in due speed was probably also irreverent, and he was doing that nonetheless. So he slowed to a walk and attempted to marshal his thoughts.   
All right, so he hadn’t exactly treated Tenzin exactly the same as his other children all of the time, but those were only tiny details, errant threads in the vast weave of life. He was sure he’d taken care to let all of his children know how special and loved they were. And so what if they had their differences of opinion – they were family, a united whole, right?   
Here Aang admitted he ran into a wall – not literally, in fact he had continued for a long time without hitting any wall at all. But in his mind, he had to admit that he’d never been part of a family growing up. The Air Monks raised him and he’d had brothers aplenty – but it was not the same thing as a tightly knit, cohesive unit.   
Aang pulled at his collar. The air down here was very close, wasn’t it? He walked on, trying to meditate but feeling he’d give anything for a good, fresh breeze. His scalp prickled. Was it just him, or was the hallway getting narrower?  
A gleam shone from the darkness. The mirror loomed large before him… and he wondered, had he just been walking into the same mirror over and over? He reached out with a trembling hand, and flicked the mirror. He reviewed all of the worst arguments, spats, fallings-out, quarrels, he’d had with his son, in the few seconds that it took for the image in the mirror to form.  
A snatch of open sky; white stone in a circle. It was the top of the tower of the Southern Air Temple. An orange blur appeared, and slowed, circling the turret, before it resolved itself into the shape of Tenzin. He lowered himself to the ground, and then collapsed with exhaustion and weeping, on the ancient white stones.   
Aang pressed his hands to the mirror. His eyes were misting; he blinked to clear them. Oogi came into sight with a branch torn from a nearby pear tree in his mouth. He dropped the branch at Tenzin’s side, and the man straightened up. In response to the Sky Bison’s grumble, Tenzin slowly ate a couple of mouthfuls of a pear, and stowed the other ripe ones in his robe. The rest he chucked off of the turret top. When the last pear was gone he threw the branch after it, and hopped back onto his feet.  
He descended the tower and began to wander through the Temple. Aang watched him walk through the Airball courts, and move quietly through the library. The whole time, Tenzin’s face was removed, even closed, like he was looking at these things for the first time, and not impressed with what he saw. At the end of the vision, Tenzin stood before the statue of Monk Gyatso, his face still critical and closed.   
The image faded then. Just as well. Aang didn’t think he could bear watching Tenzin fly away for a second time.   
Now the mirror was empty except for his own reflection. He gazed at himself. He looked old. His arrow was faded, and his face deeply lined.  
Slowly he turned around and walked away from the mirror, slowly. His thoughts weighed him down.

The path continued to curve under Aang’s feet, until suddenly he met a sharp right turn. He took it, and found himself at the start of a straight passage. At the end of it was light, the circular gate to the outside. The sun was shining.   
Aang felt himself come out of his unhappy trance. How long had he been in there? It jarred him to see the sunlight after so long a time of living in a night-cast world.   
He stepped outside, blinking in the sunlight. It was late afternoon, and someone nearby was cooking.  
Aang followed his nose – he was exactly at the entrance, right where he had started – and met the Porter, a little ways down the hill, cooking up a mess of squash and carrots and sweet potatoes. He nodded to Aang and gestured to the empty space across the fire. Aang absently noted that the meal was entirely vegan. “I thank you for the chance to visit the Circle,” he said. He felt suddenly, very hungry. “I thank you for the food.”  
“Well. I was raised to be hospitable,” the Porter replied. Something like a smile tugged the corner of his mouth. In response to Aang’s questioning gaze, he said, “I was born in the Northern Air Temple.”  
“Oh! Why… you don’t say.”   
The Porter served the guest, and then himself, and they ate in silence.   
As he cleaned the plates away, the Porter asked, “So, do you understand better now?”  
Aang closed his eyes. “Yes. I understand… that it is my fault. I have, throughout my son’s life, tried to fit him into a mold which might not have been natural for him, like trying to teach a bird to burrow. I only wished for him to…” he couldn’t finish. He wiped a hand quickly across his eyes. But when he looked at the Porter again, the man appeared not to notice his tears. Instead he poured out a little tea into a pair of stoneware bowls, and said simply, “Nobody’s perfect.”


	5. Glimpses in the Flame

Aang stayed with the Porter for five days. There were, he learned, many tasks involved with the keeping of a labyrinth. There was the labyrinth itself, and the forest, and the badgermoles that all needed tending in their own ways, not to mention that Tuuli needed a rest from flying hither and yon all over the Earth Kingdom. Aang also felt that the Porter had much to teach him, and was perhaps a little lonely for some company. So he stayed, and the two men talked late into the night on many matters.  
But on the fifth day, a fresh wind blew up. Aang hitched up Tuuli’s saddle, and prepared to embark.   
The Porter advised him, “There is a fire temple that was built on Crescent Island, by Avatar Roku. It was destroyed near the end of the Hundred Years’ War.”   
Aang nodded, restraining from adding that he had been slightly, indirectly responsible for the destruction.   
“On that same island,” the Porter went on, “A new temple has been built. I have cause to understand that the seers who train there are disciplined and wise. If you mean to continue this quest, then I would suggest the Temple Reforged for your next destination.”   
Aang nodded. “I thank you for your counsel. The wind is westerly today… a good omen.” The two men parted on friendly terms.  
Aang rode Tuuli on, following the wind, still heartsore but calmer now. Days of contemplation and work had done him good.   
When they neared the Temple Reforged, Aang almost dreaded the heat, swamped as it was in a heat wave from the tropics. But he coaxed Tuuli down to the island’s surface, where the stones of the temple courtyard were no more than pleasantly warm. Surprised acolytes hurried to greet the Avatar, clad in robes of red and deep bronze. Aang disembarked from the bison, and bowed to the piety of priests to one side of him near him – and then again, to the piety of nuns on his other side– and a third time, as a high priestess called to him, “Greetings to you, Avatar Aang. Your visit is unexpected but most welcome.” She gave a sharp but brief glare to her left, and a quartet of neophytes scrambled to attention and hurried away, presumably to arrange his chambers.   
The woman spoke on, “You do us great honor. I am Sage Hyeon, high priestess of this temple. I greet you warmly.”   
Aang met her eyes: her face was lined around the mouth and forehead, suggesting much serious thought but also many smiles.   
“My warmest greetings to you,” Aang answered, bowing in the traditional Fire Nation style.   
“You will be welcome to stay with us for as long as you like,” she told him.   
“Thank you; I only can spare a couple of days.” He followed Sage Hyeon into the main building, and was led into a tea room. It was spacious and decorated with handsome scrolls and celadon pottery. As Aang sat down, he permitted an observation: “I suppose the Fire Sages take no vow of poverty?”  
Hyeon chuckled, drawing her skirts about her. “Oh, we live austerely enough, I suppose, though this is a very rich temple. Don’t judge us by this room alone – this is what we reserve for guests. Most of our worldly wealth is on display here.”   
A scratch sounded at a doorway, one which, Aang presumed, led into the temple’s inner rooms.   
“Come in,” Hyeon called. To Aang she added, “and here comes one of our most precious treasures.”   
The door opened and two nuns entered, flanking a small girl. Despite her extremely simple dress, a string of peridot stones crossed her brow – a gift of the volcano, no doubt. She kept her eyes modestly downcast as the two nuns set out the tea. Aang noticed the girl was fidgeting. When the tea implements were in place, but the cups still empty, the nuns left. Hyeon said, “Daja, this is the Avatar, Gentle Aang of the Air Nomads. Consider speaking to him as a spiritual exercise – starting now.”   
At once Daja’s head darted up. She glanced at the priestess, then at Aang, then at the priestess again. The priestess nodded. Daja at once began to talk: “Greetings to you Avatar Aang, I hope the Temple Reforged provides enlightenment and wow your tattoos are awesome! Can I get tattoos like that? Where did you come from? Do you really only eat plants? What was it like to sleep in a glacier? I hate being cold, I couldn’t imagine.”  
“Daja.” The woman’s voice was testy, but not sharp. The girl fell silent once more. Hyeon said, “We can discuss tattoos later, but it is by no means traditional. I know you love to talk, but remember that the Avatar has traveled a long distance today, and he might enjoy some…”  
“Tranquility, I know, I know.” Daja began to pour the tea in the elegant rite particular to the Fire Nation – Aang was served first, as the guest.  
“Actually, I’ve had my fill of tranquility for the past week,” Aang offered brightly. “I’m happy to talk and answer any questions. But I’m very interested to hear about you, Daja.”  
Daja’s face brightened. Aang saw that her eyes were a peculiar shade of blue – almost violet. The girl, while pouring tea and offering bread, said in a quick and steady stream, “I’ve been gifted with the Sight for as long as I can remember – and that’s not boasting, it’s true (I hate it when people boast). My parents were a bit scared of me, so they came to Ajima Hyeon – only she wasn’t my ajima then, obviously – and she took me to the temple to study. I like my studies, really I do, but I have to take a vow of silence at all times except for when I’m in a trance – and that hardly counts! – or when Ajima Hyeon gives me special permission. Like right now. Because you’re the Avatar, so just talking to you is practically spiritual nourishment, right?”  
Aang laughed. “I shall have to tell my wife you said that. She will be most pleased.”   
The tea was lovely; the company and conversation even more so. But after Aang had recounted the story of Avatar Kyoshi manifesting to him in Chin Village (apparently Kyoshi was a hero to young Daja), Hyeon asked him, “Avatar… on what quest have you come to our temple?”   
Aang blinked at her. “I didn’t come on any sort of quest.”  
She stared at him, not threateningly, but simply making her disbelief clear. For a moment Aang was tempted to tell her all – Air Nomads traditionally adored gossiping and sharing news, but after the Stone Circle, he thought that the Spirits had told him all they were going to. Now it was his turn to simply let Tenzin be, let him wander and try to ease his heart on the air currents.   
He repeated, “I don’t have any ulterior motive in coming here.”  
“You have a question,” came a piping voice. “You’ve sought other answers to your question.”  
He glanced at Daja in surprise. She went on, looking at Aang with her eyes slightly unfocused, “In mountain and swamp and town you’ve looked for answers.” Then she focused again, and asked, in a slightly distracted way, “Are you on a sightseeing trip, or something?”  
Aang felt himself going red. “Well, um, I did have a quest. But it grew as I tried to fulfill it. Wherever I went, the next place seemed to promise answers – so I travel on.” He grinned, hoping his answer was satisfying.   
She didn’t look pleased. “So, Fire is only fourth best for you?”  
“Daja,” Hyeon said warningly.  
“No, that is not what I think. I’m a Nomad. To travel extensively is my nature. But I have left my quest behind me for now. Now I seek a little time to rest; time to be among priests of fire. I have visited a shaman of water, a hermit of earth, and a fortuneteller, also of earth.”   
Daja nodded. Hyeon patted her hand in two warning taps. “Do not criticize our guests. It is not a good habit to get into – no matter how much they may deserve it. You may meet people with worse crimes than wandering, after all, but you must always be polite. And on that note…” she drained her teacup. “When you have finished your tea, I will show you to your chambers, your reverence.”

 

The next day, Aang rose with the sun – and when the temple bell clanged loudly – to attend morning services. These were conducted facing east (the evening services were in a westward chapel, to let in the sunset). Hyeon led the first prayer, half-speaking, half-chanting in a sonorous voice. After a rousing morning hymn, the service ended, and the dedicates filed out for their breakfast.  
As he sat down for the meal of rice and stewed chickpeas, Aang reflected that, had it not been for the genocide, had he not been the Avatar, this well could have been his life: traveling from temple to temple, praying, singing, preaching a little, one of a set of brothers in identical robes with identical tattoos.   
Would he trade this life, here, for what he had – the home that he called his own, his children’s voices around him, the glint of sunlight on Katara’s hair in the morning?  
No, of course he would not. But it was worth thinking about, all the same.  
After breakfast Aang washed his bowl, just as the other priests did. He was ready to help them in their daily chores when Daja hurried up to him, tugging on his sleeve.  
“Pardon me, Your Reverence, but there’s telegrams just come in for you.”  
“You installed a telegraph on this island?” Aang asked, disbelieving.  
“No – we still use messenger hawks, but there’s a fast hawk service between here and the nearest city, which does have a telegraph,” Daja explained as she led him to the library, a small chamber of which was set aside for his use today. A small mahogany table was nearly buried under telegrams and letters, with a set of stationery thoughtfully provided, hinting ominously at all the work he had in front of him.   
The morning service had cleared Aang’s mind of thoughts of the moment and brought him near to the eternal; now the mundane reality of the world – and its very worst manifestation, politics – weighed heavily on him again. He sighed and sat down at the pile of letters.  
“Do you need anything?” Daja asked.  
“No, no. Run along and … play, or whatever it is you do.”  
She closed the library door behind her, leaving him to read. Every single letter was marked over multiple times, as usually happened with his mail – from Omashu to Makapu Village, to the Foggy Swamp Tribe, to Omashu again, and now to the Temple Reforged. This was why it was good for him to rest in the same place from time to time. His friends from all corners of the world had gotten used to this, much as they cursed the notion of “postage” every time they tried to mail him something.   
There were notes on the first-ever public gubernatorial elections taking place in the Fire Nation, and how well they were going; the new currency for the United Republic had been drafted, and did he approve; the linguistic survey of the Earth Kingdom had just completed their first study of the Si Wong Desert dialect. The Northern Water Tribe’s chieftain wrote to invite the Avatar to the New Year celebration; the queen of Omashu did the same.   
Aang had been lifting document after document to his eyes, hardly really reading them, until he lifted a small telegram and read the byline: Bei Fong, Republic City.  
He read the rest of it immediately. It was very brief, from Toph. It read:  
Lin and Tenzin broke up STOP For good this time STOP Lin very upset STOP I might pummel Tenzin the next time I see him STOP.  
Aang couldn’t even smile at his friend’s joke. Toph had been ill this past year, and the thought of her rising from her sickbed (to which she was only reluctantly confined, even on her worst days) to seek vengeance on Tenzin was not remotely amusing in that context. She must have been furious when she dictated it to her servant.  
Right below that telegram was a letter, in the traditional pale green stationary that Toph and her daughters used. Aang recognized Lin’s precise, economical writing – in some ways her characters were exactly like Tenzin’s.   
He opened the letter carefully, and read,  
“Dear Aang,  
You no doubt know by now, but Tenzin and I have broken up. I’m not good with words and I won’t even try to tell you what I’m feeling right now. But I’m upset. I’m angry and I’m sad. And if it weren’t your son, I would want to trek out to wherever you are and spill my guts to you. But I can’t. I can only hope that this break between Tenzin and me isn’t going to do anything to the friendship between the two of us.   
You’ve been the best sorta-uncle a girl could ask for. I would have been very happy to be your daughter-in-law. But, Aang, whatever Tenzin may tell you, know that he has a wolf-lion’s share of the blame himself. He said horrible, cruel things to me, all because I don’t want children. I never have. He treats this fact like it’s unnatural, like it makes me less of a woman, and like I’m being immature and silly to keep insisting on it. Whatever else you may have taught him, it seems you forgot to teach him that a woman’s life is her own to choose, from start to finish. I’m going to live my life the way I damn well please, and if Tenzin doesn’t like that, then to the devils with him.  
I’ve started rambling. I can’t focus on anything since this break-up. But at least I’ve started eating again. Don’t worry; Mom is looking out for me. Aang, Uncle Aang, please don’t think too horribly of me. I love you very much.  
Lin Bei Fong”

It was dated from Republic City, one week ago.   
Aang folded the letter, his hands pinning the paper down as though doing so would send a loving touch to the girl – in his eyes, always a little girl – who had written it.   
‘Of course,’ he wanted to tell her, ‘of course your life is your own to choose, and I would have it no other way.’ He reminded himself that, at least, the blame here did not lie on his shoulders – once Toph had pointed it out to him, the idea that womanhood equaled motherhood was everywhere that he looked. Lin was very brave, to recognize that it wasn’t her path, rather than try to commit to it anyway, and only cause herself pain in the years to come.   
He pulled out the Temple’s stationary and wrote out a reply, the first reply in the whole great pile of mail that he had found. He offered what words of wisdom he could, and all the confidence he could muster, and all the love that would fit in the paper.

 

Aang was led to a spacious chamber, whose ceiling was open to let in the streams of sunlight. The room was bare of all ornamentation else, except for the clean tile mosaic floor, where a sun danced. Hyeon nodded to the girl. Daja nodded a silent farewell to Aang, before being whisked away by silent, red-robed attendants. “Now she will meditate for an hour, before she attempts to See,” Hyeon explained.   
“How old is she?”  
“Eleven.”   
“As old as I was when I awoke from the glacier. And how long as she been studying here?”  
“Two years. Her parents, both firebenders, were befuddled at the prospect of a non-bending child, who took frights and seizures, and could find lost things – so they gifted her to us.”   
“Do you have the Sight?”  
“No. I am merely her instructor on more mundane matters, and her legal guardian. But she has the makings of a great Seeress, you mark my words.”   
Her voice warmed with pride. Aang felt something very like envy, envy for an emotion he had felt. How he had been so proud of Tenzin, his little Airbender! A temple full of monks could not have been more doting. Was all that truly swept away by one argument? Not for the first time, Aang wished that Monk Gyatso was by his side. If he had guided Aang through his adolescence, then maybe Aang would know better how a father-son relationship could change.   
The proceedings began. First came the prayers, long musical chants meant to be sung with full voices and full hearts. Then the priests and nuns came out and half-delivered, half-performed a prayer with dance and song, and even tambourine. It reminded Aang of the Dragon Dance, and he could see the passion and commitment in every gesture of the participants.  
Finally, Daja entered the space, wearing a plain white robe, with her eyes painted to resemble the Sun Warrior’s paint. She fidgeted a bit in her dress, and every now and then an all-but-invisible attendant would reach out and straighten a seam or a sleeve. Meanwhile, priests and priestesses marched in a circle around the floor, swinging censures, chanting low, consecrating the time to come. Soon the air was full of smoke. One priest bent fire into the firepit, and then hurried out, as gracefully as he could manage. The floor was empty.  
Daja stepped onto it. She stood before the firepit, in a beam of sunshine. From her wide sleeves she pulled satchels of herbs. She threw them onto the fire, reciting a prayer asking for vision and guidance.  
As she shuffled from foot to foot, Aang felt a brief pang of absurdity, at the notion of this little girl commanding such a ceremony. Then she looked straight at him. Her eyes, their color heightened by her plain white robe, were striking.   
Hyeon whispered to him, “Don’t be alarmed. She is asking for you, and trying to fix you and your son in her mind.”  
Daja tilted her head back in a stilted, deliberate manner, staring straight into the flames. Her breathing grew very loud. Aang felt Hyeon grow tense beside him. Daja lowered her head, her eyes still on the fire. She leaned in, peering so closely Aang was afraid for her headdress.   
“I see a city,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice. “A city of thieves, a city on fire, a city under siege. I see a knife in the dark. I see a man with an arrow, walking the streets with fear. I see a woman's hand, gloved with lightning. I see – I see an old Airbender, battling spirits with glowing eyes and arms like whips. I see a trusted traitor, who twists blood in human veins –”  
Aang was suddenly, irrevocably certain that all this was a terrible idea.  
“I see a jeering crowd, I see a mask, I see, I see, a death holding the hand of a child – no!” The last was uttered in such a small voice, Aang knew it belonged to the child only. She tottered away from the fire and shrank within her robe, until it crumpled around her. “I’m done,” she said, “I’m through.”   
Aang glanced at Hyeon, but she was already on the open floor, kneeling next to the girl. She held the unsteady child in her arms and spoke to her soothingly until the child fell asleep, by which point a whole coterie of assistants hovered uncertainly about. Looking at this spectacle – both in the face of Daja, completely trusting even in her fear, and Hyeon’s anxious countenance as she handed the girl to two younger priests, Aang realized he was witnessing a maternal bond of deep love, tempered by formality and duty. When Hyeon turned back to Aang, her voice stammered.  
“Avatar Aang,” she said, “what you just – witnessed – or c-caused, yes, caused is a better word – was an exceptionally draining shamanic tra-ance. I am afraid it was not entirely a-a-auspicious…”   
“Cities on fire generally aren’t,” Aang agreed.   
She scowled at him, in a way that Air Nomad sisters had practiced to strike terror into the hearts of their charges. “Is it true that this is the third attempt you have made to glimpse what is to come?”  
“Fourth.” He winced even as he said it.  
“Maybe the spirits are running out of things to tell you!” she said sharply. “Maybe they’re tired of you running to scry and have others scry for you! Perhaps they used Daja to try and make you stop!” She passed a hand over her eyes. “Now, Avatar, if you’ll pardon me, I must see my dau—my Daja.”   
She hurried out of the chamber.   
Aang felt eyes turning to him – the eyes of the few dedicates who remained. “Shouldn’t you all be somewhere?”   
“At service,” piped up a young man, who looked like he was barely out of his teens.  
“Then I will join you at service,” Aang answered, in a tone that brooked no argument.”And someone bring me news of Daja the seer, to let me know if she does well.”   
Aang followed the line of dedicates to the chapel. The service was good: it drained Aang’s mind of thoughts of the moment and brought him nearer to the eternal. Fire Nation services were not passive; the dedicates took it in turns to be the preacher, expounding on a subject near to their hearts; there was much singing and chanting, and the closing hymn lifted his spirits.   
As he left the chapel, Aang let himself be led to the suite of rooms prepared for him – commendably decorated, plush and elegant without being ornate – but all the same, he would have preferred a very simple cell, with a bare pallet and perhaps a jug of water.  
He meditated, allowing the sounds of monks at work and at worship to enter his thoughts. After an unknowable length of time, a scratch sounded at his door, making him start. A young monk told him that Daja had woken up.   
The young girl’s room was in the wing for very young initiates, and overlooked the sea. The girl was sitting up in bed, sipping hot ginger tea and talking to Hyeon in a low voice. When she saw Aang enter, she fell silent.  
“Please,” he said, “I’m here to apologize. My own selfishness brought you suffering. I am deeply sorry.”   
“I’m selfish sometimes too,” Daja said. “Ajima Hyeon scolds me sometimes for it.”  
Ajima, Aang knew, was a Fire Nation dialect word, something like ‘auntie.’ Hyeon didn’t correct the girl, but she did tuck a lock of hair behind the child’s ear, with a gentle, exasperated expression. And in that moment Aang had another glimpse of understanding – that blood does not create family, and that fights and differences do not destroy a family. As no person is perfect, so no family is perfect.   
At almost that precise moment, a breeze came in through the window. It was cool and sweet after the dry heat of the volcano. And Aang knew it was time to move on.


	6. Voices on the Wind

Aang and Tuuli flew at a pleasant, low altitude in a northwesterly direction. It was a cloudy day, and there was something sharp on the wind that hinted that the clouds brought more than just rain. Word had come to him of a political dispute in the Fire Nation Capitol that was getting a little out of hand: he should probably see to it. But there was no immediate rush, so he had time to admire the sprawling, very new United Republic town of Compass that lay beneath them, arranged into beautiful quadrants that exactly pointed to the four cardinal directions.  
Out of the corner of his eye, something fluttered.   
He turned his head. The town hall was signaling with a blue and yellow flag – in the old days, that had been a sign meaning “Air Nomads, Come By, Your Presence is Desired!”   
Pleased unexpectedly by the old-fashioned etiquette, he clicked his tongue, telling Tuuli to descend. At first the sky bison rebelled, soaring around the towering town hall instead. As he did, Aang saw a figure waving at the window: a pale woman, in fine Fire Nation robes. With a jolt of recognition, he waved back, and leapt off of Tuuli’s back, opening his glider. After a brief glide through the air, Aang landed on the balcony and caught the silver-haired woman in a tight hug.   
“Mai! My dear Mai, how good it is to see you!”   
“It’s good to see you, too, Aang.” Mai answered, beaming. The balcony she had prepared was screened from sight, with her customary discretion, and a small stove was brewing – what else? – tea in an iron teakettle.  
“You are the last person I expected to meet on my travels,” Aang told her as they knelt opposite each other.  
“You’re one to talk,” she answered, her black eyes taking in every detail about him. “I was slightly surprised to see a bison – is that Appa? – soaring by in the town I happened to be visiting.”   
“No, it’s a young one. His name is Tuuli.”  
“Ah, very good. Even though half the town saw him – children were pointing to him in the streets, I saw – the mayor at first sneered at the idea of raising the Air Signal flags. I think only a royal would have a guarantee of quick, non-sarcastic service.”   
Aang chuckled at the idea of Mai disparaging sarcasm. “It lifted up my heart to see those flags. But did you call me on urgent business?”  
“I have to have business to call on an old friend?” Mai asked. “But as it happens, I do have a little favor to ask.”  
“Name it.” The friendship between Mai had not been immediately warm. He’d always felt a stronger rapport with her husband, Zuko, and her friend, Ty Lee. But after Katara’s first miscarriage, Mai had arrived at their home (then in Republic City) almost at once, and had proven herself a wise and trustworthy friend, showing depths of compassion which surprised even herself.   
But in the present, her long nails tapped her handle-less teacup before she answered. “I thought you were on an errand of your own.”   
“How did you know?”  
“Telegram from Katara. Saying you were out on a personal mission, and to help Tenzin if I happened to meet him.”   
“Have you seen him?” She shook her head. “My…” he found the next words unexpectedly difficult to frame, “My errand is over. I’ve quit it.”  
Mai raised an eyebrow. “Those sentences don’t mean the same thing. In fact, they’re almost opposite.”  
Aang sighed. She had always been good at Pai Sho and riddles. “I’ve quit it. Consider me at your disposal.”   
She smiled. “It’s not disposal I’m after.” she poured out more tea. “I realized the other day that I have never been to the Western Air Temple. Oh, I’ve flown past it, but I’ve never actually explored it. Yet I’ve been to the other three, and Air Temple Island.”   
“Really? All these years?”  
“I’ve been a busy lady.  
“But it’s one of Zuko’s dearest places in the world. He hasn’t taken you?”  
Mai’s expression was thoughtful. “He loves the place, but… I think the memories there are still, sometimes, too twisted with bitterness for him to go easily. But I decided, thirty-five years is enough waiting. I was on a tour to explore them myself, by air balloon. But I wanted to know if you would be my guide. Not many people can tour the Air Temples with an authentic guide. That is, if you don’t mind.”   
Aang bowed. “It would do me honor.” 

STOP

“Of course, like all Temples, the Western Air Temple is best seen from the air,” Aang explained as they soared through the canyon. They were flying on Tuuli’s back, past the temple itself, close enough and slow enough to appreciate the courtyards, the fountains, the intricate carvings. “In the old days, you’d see dozens – maybe a hundred banners flapping from there – and there. They’d be mostly yellow – maybe blue – any bright, cheery color.”  
“Did they serve any purpose?”  
“Oh, some advertised the season, some were to tell the weather, mostly there were just to be colorful.”   
“I guess if you can’t tell what the weather is like, you’re not a very good Airbender.”  
Aang laughed. “Too true! And of course they raised white flags on the death of a head monk or nun.”  
“I thought that there was no hierarchy among Air Nomads?”  
“Well…” he frowned. “There wasn’t, but even so you always knew some monks or nuns were better at – better at being spiritual, or at Airbending, or at communicating with Bisons. That didn’t make them better, but – some deaths just got more attention, I guess.”  
“Don’t worry about giving me the exact answer. It’s not a big deal.”  
Aang guided Tuuli to land on an upper level of the Temple. “This courtyard,” he explained, “wide enough to accommodate ten sky bison comfortably, was the first part of the Western Air Temple to be built. See, in the days of Avatar Po, he wanted to express his gratitude to…” And the tour began.  
Aang knew many stories about the Air Temple’s history, but there were many places or statues that Mai pointed to, asking “What’s that?” to which Aang had to answer, “I don’t know.” Fortunately Mai seemed most interested in the places Aang knew about personally, like the plaza where he had mastered Firebending, and the fountain where Zuko had first approached the Avatar and his friends to plead his case. The giant Pai Sho table also pleased her.  
Then they reached the foyer. Not any foyer, but the foyer to the nursery.   
As Aang explained to Mai, “As the Eastern Air Temple was where the sky bison were bred and raised, this temple was the official nursery and, I guess you could say maternal ward of the Air Nomads. Not that Air Nomad women didn’t give birth at other temples – or, for that matter, wherever they happened to find themselves! But they preferred here. They always… um, always returned here.”  
Mai stepped around a corner, and he followed. He found her in the doorway of another room. It was filled with little egg-shaped cradles, all empty.   
Aang couldn’t speak. He leaned heavily on the doorframe, and felt Mai put her arm through his. His head was bowed and his eyes clouded with tears.   
He didn’t know how long he stood like that when he laid a hand on the stone of the wall, and his Earthbending sense picked up something odd. He pressed his hand on the stone with a will, and he felt it – there – someone else was in the temple, a floor below them.   
He looked up. “Someone…”  
Mai nodded. She moved with surprising quickness for a woman of her age, one cool knife already in her hand.   
“I’d rather avoid violence,” Aang said when its gleam caught his eye, “If I can.”   
Mai gave a little smile.   
They moved up the staircase, a gust of wind coiling in Aang’s hand, waiting to strike… the other hand was on the stone, letting him know when they were getting closer, closer –   
“In here!”   
They burst into the room, startling a young man in Air Nomad robes, and upsetting his careful rows of colored tiles.   
“Wait,” Aang said. “Kozek? Is that you?”  
The young man sat up. “Avatar Aang!” he cried. “And… Fire LadyMai?” he added, in disbelief.  
“The very same,” Mai said, relaxing very slightly.   
“Hello!” the man jumped up with such levity that he seemed an Airbender already – or maybe he was just young and spritely and things like that. “Kozek of the Air Acolytes, at your service!” Mai looked sidelong at Aang. He didn’t blame her for her confusion – the Acolytes of Air Temple Island weren’t exactly celebrities, and Kozek’s complete peppiness tended to throw people off.   
“What are you doing here?” Aang asked.  
“Working, of course!” Kozek indicated the mosaic behind him. Half of the stones had been worn away, chipped off or lost their color, but new tiles filled the empty spaces, painstakingly recreating a curl of wind, playing under a beaming sun.   
“Did anyone tell you to restore this?” Aang just barely reached out with his Earthbending sense, to make sure – all of the tiles were firmly in place.   
“No. It was just a total whim, I guess. But I had a vision of myself at this place—” the young man’s voice grew sober, even as his amber eyes brightened. “I was clearing away vines, replacing rotten wood, and—” he indicated the work behind him. “My father worked as a restorer, after the War. I know the craft of it as well as anyone, I guess. And so I came here. I felt this place – and maybe the other temples, if I have the time – needs to be made ready for the future.”   
He sounded so confident and serene that Aang wanted to turn away. But he said, “This is good work you have been doing, Kozek, incredibly good work. I give you my blessing, but I do wish you had informed me before you started.”  
“Oh, I did! Or, I thought I did… I meant to sent a telegram… or did I? Hmm…”  
While he puzzled, he stroked his chin, where a beard was trying to take shape. Before he had shaved his head, his hair had been curly – rather like the Guru whom Aang had once known. The sudden resemblance struck him, and not in a bad way.  
“Well, informed or not, you have begun it,” Mai said diplomatically. “I would be interested in seeing what other work you’ve done. Aang? What would you think if I commission Fire Nation artists to assist Kozek?”   
“Oh, no, I can do this by myself, it’s only one temple, after all,” Kozek said, puffing up. “Just one very… uh, very big temple.”   
He didn’t see the look that passed between Aang and Mai. If he had, he would have realized that the offer was not really about him. Aang nodded to Mai, even if he thought that the row of empty cradles would require more than painters to make amends.   
As they walked along one of the outer passageways, with benign statues looking out into the open canyon, Tuuli flew past on their left-hand side, giving a grumbling roar as if to ask “What’s taking so long?”   
“Wow! What a bison!” Kozek cried. Tuuli, appreciating the attention, hovered to Kozek’s level so the man could put a hand on his vast forehead. “I’ve met some before, at the Island, but this one’s a beaut! What’s your name, fella?”   
“His name is Tuuli,” Aang answered, as a new idea took shape. Maybe his quest had accomplished something after all – bringing together a bison and Acolyte. He grinned to think so.  
“I believe we were going somewhere?” Mai asked, as though accustomed to years of keeping people on schedule. “That reminds me,” she added to Aang, softly. “Kiku is very eager to go to the Sun Warriors and learn from them before she ascends the throne.”   
“Sun Warriors?” Kozek asked.  
“What was that?” Aang asked. “Must’ve been the wind.”  
Kozek led them to a long tunnel, big enough for fifteen men to walk abreast, with sunlight streaming in, and a terrific view of the canyon.   
“This was all covered over with vines,” Tenzin explained. “But I cleared them all away and now – listen.”   
Aang and Mai listened. When a wind blew up, it piped through passages in the wall, to produce an inconsistent, but harmonious tune. The wind in the tunnel proper gave a low roaring sound as it whipped their clothes and hair. It was terribly cold.  
“This is a very old section of the temple,” Aang explained. “I believe it was called the Tunnel of Voices. I recall—”  
He turned to say something to Mai, but saw that she was shivering, retreated almost entirely into her robes. “It sounds nice,” she said. Underneath that, he heard her almost say, ‘I’m too old for this.’   
“You should be getting back to the town,” he said slowly. “It’s dark soon, and there’ll be a storm tonight. Kozek, why don’t you take her?”  
“On foot, sir?” The young Acolyte asked.  
“Why don’t you take Tuuli?” Aang pressed Mai’s arm as he led her out of the temple. “I… I don’t mean to abandon you, my old, dear friend, but this was a meditation hall, and… well… I have a mind to meditate here for a time.”  
“That’s the Avatar I know and love,” Mai said with a smile. They stepped out of the path of the wind, towards the canyon’s edge, where Tuuli was hovering, as though aware that he had passengers to take on. “I will remain in the town for another two nights, if you want to see me. I am very glad to have seen the Western Air Temple before I die.”  
“You’re not going to die, Fire Lady,” Kozek blurted, with childlike honesty.   
Mai only smiled. She embraced Aang, and the Air Acolyte bowed to the Avatar. He clambered to the top of Tuuli’s head, after helping Mai into the saddle. They waved one last time before they ascended out of the canyon and disappeared from view.  
Aang was alone now. How the wind did tear at you out in the Temple! And how quiet it was, without the sounds of Air Nomad life around – you’d have heard talking, crying, laughter, the sound of looms at work, flags snapping in the wind, bisons lowing, lemurs chittering, footsteps every which way. A part of him wished he had gone off with Mai and Kozek, but a deeper self felt content in the solitude and silence, eerie as it was.  
He sat down at the mouth of the wind tunnel, where its music arrived to his ears in full force. He welcomed the sensation of cold, the sensation of loneliness, the sensation of his wrinkled hands lying one over the other.   
He focused on his breathing: in, and out.   
In, and out. And full, and empty.   
Full.   
Empty.  
He felt peace steal into his soul, deep peace as of the earth, the ocean, and the sunset. He was breathing, in the Western Air Temple, on a stormy day in autumn. There was nowhere else to be, and nowhere else he would rather be.   
Even the silence was a part of his peace. The heartbreaking silence was a part of the Western Air Temple now, and of all the other Temples, and would be for a long time, until the living claimed them again. Life… community… children… being born… Aang felt a cough begin, deep in his lungs… preparing for death. He coughed, making a ruckus he was sure the nuns of days past would have frowned on.   
As his chest finally cleared, he fell back into his meditation.   
Deeper and deeper.   
Had anyone else been in the temple, they would have seen his tattoos flash a bright white for just an instant.   
As he reached a profound serenity, he felt intuitively that he was not alone. Without surprise or fear, he opened his eyes to see…  
Avatar Yangchen. She sat before him, her legs crossed, her pose exactly mirroring his. She half-opened her eyes to peer at him. Behind her, he saw others – and he felt his serenity go wibbly-wobbly. The Hall was filled with Airbenders, hundreds of them, their heads straight and eyes closed in meditation. Some wore robes ancient in style; some were almost naked except for the tattoos that swooped and spiraled over their entire bodies. Some were entirely bald, others had long dreadlocks that were untouched by the wind. All of them inhaled and exhaled as one. Aang realized they were following him. So he at once resumed good form, sat up straight, and breathed in…  
… and out…  
… and in again.  
He felt their memories flooding him, feelings of hope, of strength, of fear and dread being conquered by joy. He felt wrapped in their fellowship and love, as though in a patchwork quilt.   
They breathed in, and out, in unison. For a time the Air Nomad Avatars all meditated together.   
Then the wind blew sharply through the tunnel, recalling to Aang the passage of time. He heard Yangchen say, “An Avatar is never truly alone.”   
Aang said, or thought, “But my Tenzin is not an Avatar.”   
Even with his eyes closed, it seemed he could feel Avatar Yangchen smile.   
“Listen.”   
Aang listened.   
For a time all he heard was the wind whistling through the tunnel, rustling leaves, producing eerie and natural harmonies. And then he heard –  
Tenzin. He heard his son, saying, “In the beginning, there was formless void – and the wind swept through the void, and it separated the light from the dark—”  
And a new voice, still Tenzin’s, but older and deeper, was heard, saying “I pledge my life to you, breath by breath. Where you go, I will go. Your people will be my people…”   
And then Aang heard laughter. He heard children’s voices, indistinct, but animate with joy. Very distant, he heard “Daddy! Daddy!” over and over again. He knew them, although he had never heard them before—  
Tenzin’s children.   
And there were more sounds, maybe only echoes, or maybe future generations, maybe a nation waiting for the future to come and bring them to life. The temple was filled with sound.  
The wind died down. There was silence once more. Aang opened his eyes, blinking away tears, and found he was alone.   
But not really.  
He stood up slowly, and walked to the shrine of winds at the back of the tunnel, and bowed deeply. Then, observing all correct protocol, he tidied up, leaving the temple nice for the next person who might want to use it. 

 

As he walked to the balcony edge, he noticed how dark it had gotten. Rain pelted his face. He heard a lowing from the sky. He looked up and saw Tuuli, with Kozek, descending into the canyon at speed.   
“What is it?” he called to Kozek.  
“The storm’s almost here,” Kozek answered. “We’re going to catch the edge of it, but it’ll still be a doozy. We need to get you back to the town!”   
And, perhaps a last remnant of the past Avatars were warning him, or maybe it was paternal instinct, but Aang simply knew:   
“Tenzin is caught in the storm. We have to find him.”


	7. Violets in His Hand

The storm was the product of its season: wild, churning, as repetitive as the beat of a bird’s wing, and so large. A city could spend days in the grip of a storm like this. But Tuuli the bison met the storm as a challenger worthy of his mettle. And Aang housed the planet’s own spirit, to whom this behemoth of water and wind was practically a sneeze. His Airbending cut through the gales like a scythe, and he lit the lanterns with firebending every time they spluttered out.   
Kozek was not faring quite so well, clinging to the saddle for dear life. But the younger monk still hung on gamely, peering into the rain-soaked darkness for a scrap of yellow and orange.  
He’d yelled about five times that he would need some of those new-fangled aviator goggles, to which Aang made no reply, because any reply he’d attempted would have had to start with “Back in my day,” and Aang didn’t have time to become a cliché.  
Below them the sea raged against jutting black cliffs, which might hide anything in their stones. Aang put his hands to his mouth and hollered with all his might, “TENZIN!”  
He waited, counted to five, and then hollered again, “TENZIN!”  
After what felt like years, he heard a feebly yelled reply from the cliffs.  
“Down, Tuuli, down! Yip-yip!”  
“That didn’t sound like him,” Kozek said uneasily. “It sounded like—”  
A sky bison. It was Oogi, soaked through, half-flying and half-clambering along the Cliffside, lowing with grief.  
“Where is he, boy? Where’s Tenzin?” Aang asked, leaning over as far as he dared to stroke Oogi’s horn.   
“Are bisons colorblind?” asked Kozek. Nonplussed, Aang stared at him. “Maybe he’s taken refuge in the cliffs.”   
Aang nodded, and they resumed flying.   
After what seemed like hours…  
“TENZIN!”   
Now they heard a faint “Here!”   
For a moment, the lanterns secured to the saddle flared with light, and Aang saw a small figure in orange, trying to scale the cliff-face to escape the rising sea with a glider tucked awkwardly beneath one arm. “There!”   
When they were near, Tenzin turned from the rocks and held an arm out to his father. Aang pulled him to safety, half-carrying him to the saddle, where he lay curled up and shivering.   
Aang only glanced at his son – he looked even thinner than last time, and a shock of black hair was growing over his arrow – and then took the reins again. “Back to the village, Tuuli – let’s outrun the storm!”   
Tuuli roared, delighted. Oogi followed at a slower pace, but Aang kept the whipping winds away from the two bisons and the two young dedicates, and he kept the lanterns burning until they reached the village of Compass.   
The Air Signal flags were still waving, and lanterns were blazing against the night – a gift of Fire Lady Mai – to make sure the town hall could be seen even in the storm. 

Kozek, once his feet were back on solid ground, dubbed himself the official nurse to Tenzin and to Aang. He saw to their comfort with the same care and attention that he paid to the restoration of the Temple. But even he knew when to step back and let Aang tend to his son, who lay, still shivering, at the center of a circle of care. Finally, past midnight, Tenzin’s fever broke. His eyes cleared as he looked around himself. He caught sight of Aang.  
“Dad,” he croaked. “I’m sorry… I, I’m sorry. I should have been…” he quieted when Aang put a hand on his hair, stroking it tenderly.   
“I should have been a lot of things, too. I’m sorry, too. Don’t worry about it now, my boy. Sleep.” And Aang started to sing, “If only, if only, the moon in the sky…” until Tenzin fell into a healing sleep.  
STOP

When Tenzin woke up, he didn’t recognize his surroundings. He darted his eyes to and fro across the ceiling. Then the scrtch scrtch of a quill met his ears. He turned his head – wow, he was sore – and saw Aunt Mai, sitting at a desk, composing letters. “Aunt?” he asked, slowly.   
Mai turned to him, smiling. “Good morning, Tenzin. How do you feel?”  
“Sore.”  
“Hungry at all?”   
“A little.” His stomach gave a loud grumble, belying his words.   
“I’ll ring up some food. Your father only left your side a half-hour ago, when I insisted. He’s in the town square, helping clean up – and last I heard, talking to some youths who might be considering the Air Acolyte lifestyle.”  
“Oh. Good.”  
“He’ll be back soon.”   
She rang a bell. Servants brought in food – a warm, nourishing soup with noodles, cold melon slices, fruit juice. Tenzin ate in silence. Aunt Mai was one of the few members of his extended family with whom he could be silent, and not be pestered for it, one way or the other. When he finished he asked Mai how she came to be there, was anyone else nearby? Mai said no, and explained her visit to the Western Air Temple.   
Tenzin nodded. “And how did you like it?”  
“I found it beautiful. Breathtaking. Almost as grand as Republic City.”  
Tenzin curled up to his knees. “Yes. I think it might be the most beautiful temple – but its size! It seems full of echoes, ghosts – I can’t understand how my father could live there with just a handful of children.” He nibbled the last of the melon rind. “But then, there’s a lot I don’t understand about my father.”  
“Do you understand how much he loves you?”  
The question was not meant to be sentimental or cloying. Mai looked at Tenzin with focus and concern.   
Tenzin nodded slowly. “I think so… but, I don’t know. Love right now seems to me just a tangle and a storm.”  
“Then let’s avoid the storm,” said a voice from the doorway. Tenzin turned to see his father standing there, smiling warmly at him. “I’d rather talk about where you’ve been, what you’ve seen, since we met. I want to know your heart.” He sat by his son’s bedside and took his hand.  
“Tea, anyone?” Mai asked.  
“It seems like I’ve drunk nothing else for an entire month. Sure, let’s have some tea,” Aang smiled.   
Tenzin watched the black tea fill the cups, composing his thoughts. Then he raised his cup to his father and his aunt’s health, and began his story.   
“I went first to the Swamp Tribe, and stayed with them for a couple of days. I just wanted to be with people who I didn’t know, who wouldn’t try to weigh in on my situation. I was amazed by how they were so familiarly Water Tribe, yet at the same time so different – they consider themselves a part of the swamp even more than those at the South Pole consider themselves a part of the ice. Most of them had never met me before, but knowing I was the son of Katara was enough to make me family.   
“I was sorry to leave them, but I knew I had to… Then… Father, I did something you won’t be proud of. I covered my arrow. I wore a turban and stopped shaving my head. I wanted to see how people treated me when I was not an Air Nomad, visibly, at least, or when I wasn’t seen as just an extension of the Avatar. First I went to Omashu. I rented a room there – I had to pay a lot more than I’ve ever had to pay, traveling with you – and then I went to market. I was accosted like never before – people bumped into me, I shoved off at least three pickpockets, and there were so many merchants trying to get me to buy their wares! Usually they just fall silent when they see my arrow, probably because they think I don’t have any money. I studied all the goods like I might want to buy them – they were all so interesting and bright – but by the end of the day I had bought nothing. Everything ran together in my mind, all the goods started to look the same – like flimsy garbage, all meant to be someday thrown away. At first I wanted to buy things, but then, it seemed to me just… foolish.  
“After Omashu, I flew to a United Republic town, the City of Industry. They have a strong Fire Nation character. Again, I covered my arrow. I called myself Lee. What’s so funny?”  
“Nothing,” Mai said, suppressing a grin. “Go on.”  
“I avoided the market, and just walked through the neighborhoods around. But soon I was curious about the lives of the people in the town. I wanted to know what it was like to be them. So I decided to get a job in one of the factories in the town – everyone worked for a factory, on some level or another. I stayed there for two weeks, working in place of a man called Genji who had broken his leg. I earned my keep. I was proud to prove I could do work, glad for the experience – but it was depressing. The workers were full of worry and so tired, and they didn’t dare to stop because they all had families to support. They had barely enough strength at the end of the day to walk home, hug their children, and ask how school went – and half of them ended up picking a bottle after that. I was paid at the end of each week, but the money weighed in my hand. It was counted out to me by a numbers-cruncher; its counterpart was sludge in the water and filth in the air. And despite two weeks of trying to lift the spirits of the other workers, I was not sure I made any difference in their lives.”  
“You might have,” Aang said gently. “You don’t know just yet.”  
“I quit two days ago. I got the strangest, most desperate urge at closing time to just go home.” He looked his father. “I thought, I’ve been away from the ice for far too long. And I wanted to see you again. I was so eager to go home that I failed to notice the wind changing, picking up. Oogi and I were trying to make for the Western Air Temple, but we were caught before we could reach shelter.”   
“A little imprudent – but you’re allowed to be imprudent from time to time,” Aang said. “It sounds like you’ve had quite an adventure.”  
“It was really very mundane,” Tenzin protested.   
“Flight is mundane, to a bird,” Mai said, adding, “or to an Airbender.”  
“Have you been thinking about…” Aang hesitated.   
“Of course I’ve been thinking about her – as little as I can, but it’s still hard. I feel like I saw her in everything I touched, everywhere I went. And I don’t feel any more serene than when I started, not really. Maybe we wouldn’t have been really happy together… but it still hurts. I don’t really want to think about it.”  
“Of course you don’t.” Aang took his son’s hand. “Serenity will come in its time. We will return to the Southern Water Tribe as soon as you feel strong enough for the journey. You’ve only had a little chill, after all. A son of the Water Tribe should be used to much worse.”   
Tenzin chuckled at that. “I’ve had much worse. Now, did you have any adventures, father?”  
“Oh, a little visiting. Here and there, you know…”

STOP

The next day, Katara received a telegram saying that her husband and son were well and would be returning home soon.  
Fire Lady Mai left the town of Compass after two days, returning to the people who needed her. The Airbenders and Air Acolyte remained another three days. While the bison rested, the humans tended to the sick and advised the troubled.  
The day that the Avatar and his son left was a cloudy day, but not too cool, and the winds were fine. Once they were above the clouds, Tenzin thought, as he studied them, it would be very pleasant.   
It was a perfect day to start flying home.  
Kozek and Tuuli had returned to the Western Air Temple, to continue their work. Aang was writing a few last letters. Oogi was taking his last meal of sweet hay before they embarked, and Tenzin was walking around the village square, giving his legs a good stretch. His head was freshly shaved, and the cool wind on his scalp was a bit surprising. Tenzin thought of the feel of ice under his shoes, and the place he’d seen, and the bustling streets of Republic City – and Lin, what she would say about his adventure, how she would tease, what her hand would feel like in his.   
His heart still went sore to think of her. Maybe it would always be sore. Or maybe someday he would heal, and so would she, and they could be friends again. Maybe.  
At least he knew that the telegraph wires even now carried a message to Republic City and the Bei Fong household: “I’m sorry. Longer message to follow.”   
Maybe it wasn’t the best way to go, after a breakup, but Tenzin needed at least a few words to be let out. He sighed.   
“Sir?”  
He turned. A young woman, barely out of girlhood, stared at him wide-eyed, halfway concealed behind a pillar. “Yes? You can come closer, if you like.”   
She stepped towards him timidly. In her hand she held a very small bundle of flowers. “Are you leaving today? You and the Avatar?”  
“Yes, my father and I are going home. Did you want to ask him something?”  
“Oh, no! Um, I talked to him the day after he arrived. I told him I’d, um, like to think about joining the Air Acolytes, but my mother needs me at home. Or, I tried to say that. I’m not sure he heard me.”  
Tenzin smiled. “I think that your care for your mother is a most honorable thing. And the doors of the Air Acolytes are always open. What is your name?”  
“Pema.”  
“I’m Tenzin.” He bowed to her (a bow acknowledged the sacred in every soul), and she bowed back (he got an odd feeling that she bowed for the very same reason).   
When she straightened, she was smiling in a slightly catlike way. “Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a safe and happy voyage.”  
“I am sure it will be both. Thank you.”   
She stood there another moment, shuffling her feet and turning pink, before she pushed the flowers in her hand at him, gave a very hurried bow, and darted away.   
He looked after her as she left, and then at the flowers he held. It was a small clump of violets, delicate and sweet-smelling. Tenzin felt a rush of joy, of gratitude, for this simple and brief encounter, a beautiful moment while it lasted. He tucked the flowers into the front of his robe with great gentleness as Oogi landed in the square, ready to take off.

STOP

Aang, his spirits high, leapt gallantly into the air, sending leaves flying all over the square in a flurry of color. The people who had gathered to see them off gasped with delight.   
“Father, are you all settled in? Good. Oogi, yip-yip!” Tenzin flicked the reins.  
Oogi gave a great bat of his tail, and ascended into the air. The townspeople began to wave, and cheer, and wish safe travels. When the smiling faces below them had faded into dots, Tenzin said, casual as could be, “You know, Father, I didn’t mean what I said at the Temple. I really do want children – I always have. And I think I would, even if I wasn’t an Airbender. Just… so you know.”  
“Very good,” Aang said, watching the clouds go by, coming closer and closer.   
But that wouldn’t settle Tenzin. As they ascended, he offered: “It’s such a delight, flying. I want to share it with someone. I want to teach. And inspire.”   
Aang smiled at him. “You already do.”   
They passed above the clouds, and emerged into a realm of cold, thin air and blazing sunlight, where the clouds moved below them in a slow sea of white. It was, Aang decided, a perfect moment. He looked at his son, full of pride, elevated by joy, humbled by love – and noticed that Tenzin was holding a flower in his left hand. It was a violet.  
Aang took it as a good omen. 

END


End file.
